PacificRim - a throwback (sort of?) to Godzilla and giant robot anime, directed by Guillermo del Toro (known primarily for his horror films) and starring Jax from Sons of Anarchy (Charlie Hunnam), Chieko from Babel (Rinko Kikuchi), Luther from Luther (Idris Elba), and Charlie from It’s Always Sunny(Charlie Day) - looks to be one of the stranger blockbusters of 2013, and that could very well be a good thing.

On why he changed his mind on post-converting Rim for 3D - courtesy of Shock Till You Drop - del Toro said:

"What happened was, in the weeks and months following Comic-Con, what I asked from the studio was to agree to four points that I wanted to do. The more the ILM shots arrived, the more I realized that there were only a few shots that would miniaturize. I asked the studio, number one, that we would not hyper-stereo-lize the thing. That we would not force 3D on the beauty shots. That we would keep the giant dimensions. They agreed.

"Number two, they agreed to something very unusual. Normally a conversion takes a few weeks. I asked to start it immediately so we could take the full 40 weeks to do the conversion. As an example, 'Titanic' took about 50 weeks to convert. The final thing that I asked that they agreed to, which was amazing, was that I asked them to give me an extra budget, which is considerable, to actually have ILM composite the shots that are CG native 3D. We're not giving elements. ILM is giving the composite in 3D from the get-go. That's a huge, huge element. Now I'm going to be involved in supervising it. What can I tell you? I changed my mind. I'm not running for office. I can do a Romney."

How Guillermo del Toro went from "overcoming" the discussion to make Pacific Rim 3D to succumbing to the studio pressure to post-convert - and in only a month’s time - is anyone’s guess. I think what this says is that movie studios really don’t care about what is or isn’t 3D within the actual movie as long they get to charge extra (sometimes $5 extra) for 3D tickets. After all, the #1 films of the past four years have all been 3D, including The Avengers, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II, Toy Story 3, and Avatar, much to the chagrin of 3D opponents. Purely on the basis of accumulating dollar bills, why wouldn’t studios demand 3D for all their blockbusters?

If it’s the best experience he’s ever had (presumably on a film), it must be a particularly refreshing change of pace from his work on the adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness - the film del Toro was working on before Pacific Rim - where Universal killed the project because they weren’t willing to pony up $150 million for a horror film about 9-foot-tall monster penguins. The experience, according to del Toro, was “soul-shattering.”

Finally, Guillermo del Toro briefly spoke about his vampire book trilogy The Strain being developed as a TV series for FX:

"Fox has commissioned a pilot. Fortunately for me, that means they're not [just] commissioning a screenplay or development. We're going right to pilot. That's a very good piece of news."

Are you guys looking forward to Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim? Let us know in the comments.